Ethics training

Lincolnland requires all its employees to have annual ethics training. Without question there are many ethical issues that confront university faculty; too bad the training has nothing to do with these situations. You see the dummies that construct the training modules don't know anything about universities other than the business side of things, so the training modules ignore them with one single exception in this year's training, whether it is ethical to accept a gift from a student. The majority of the training module concerned interactions with vendors. Clearly important, but nearly irrelevant for faculty. TPP also has one major concern and that is the state and its universities claim to have the right to prevent you from accepting any outside employment. In other words, to work a second job, TPP needs to ask their permission. This is pure bull. As long as TPP functions such that he fulfills his contractual obligations to the university, they have no compelling reason for having such power. Can TPP review this textbook? Can TPP write a book? Really? When your regular job duties take way beyond the official 37.5 hour work week, the university has some nerve suggesting that they have the power to decide what else may or may not be done with your time. If they can't control how many hours are spent volunteering or on a hobby, or reading or watching reality TV, then how can they restrict paid activities particularly before they ascertain whether they interfere with your university job? So no, even though technically unethical, this faculty member will not be asking permission for paid outside gigs, if such gigs actually exist. It's a matter of principle. That and thousands of hours of unpaid overtime.

Phactor Phollowers

About Me

When not otherwise occupied, this author works as an academic botanist, a purveyor of plant diversity, taxonomy, economic botany, and rain forest ecology. The opinions expressed in this blog represent only my own and are in no way connected to the policies of my employer or state whoever they may be. No public resources were used to create this blog although many more foolish things have been done with public monies. Queries, questions, can be emailed to: phytophactor at googlemail (which is abbreviated to gmail) dot com.